Game of Thrones is the most downloaded show on TV right now for obvious reasons: it’s on HBO. Actually, that’s about it — unless you have an HBO subscription, it’s impossible to see their programming on legal streaming sites like Hulu or Netflix. Hence, as many next-day tsk tsk GoT downloads as times Jon Snow has been told he knows nothing. And yet, according to Game of Thrones director David Petrarca, they don’t give a dragon’s ass.

At the Perth Writer’s Festival this past weekend, Game of Thrones director David Petrarca downplayed the threat of piracy to the show’s success, saying that illegal downloads don’t matter since shows thrive on “cultural buzz.” As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, Petrarca shrugged when a panel mediator noted that Game of Thrones was the most pirated show of 2012; the show was downloaded about 3.9 million times per episode, which was more than a million downloads per episode more than the second-most pirated show How I Met Your Mother. “That’s how they survive,” he said. (Via)

“Cultural buzz” is both good and bad. It’s what keeps HBO from caring about people watching their shows for free, but it’s why stories like “SETH MACFARLANE RUINS THE OSCHERS” and “GIRLS THINK PIECE #17″ stay in the news for days, too. It’s also the name of Lena Dunham’s vibrator.

I usually watch it over at a friends house. However Dish does free preview weekends whenever HBO premieres a new season of one of their big shows. Since HBO usually does a marathon that same weekend I can swoop in and DVR an entire season for free.

Is anyone else surprised that HIMYM is number 2??? Are they people that don’t have DVRs or don’t know how to set them for season passes? Is it solely because CBS’s website sucks and they’re the least internet friendly network of the 4? WHY?????? Weekend at Barney’s!!!!

I meant I can’t DVR american tv, because I don’t get american channels like HBO, CBS or NBC, I usually get some american tv show like a week or 2 after it has aired in USA or sometimes even months later.

I’m getting a lot of pressure from the wife to get rid of HBO; but for 10 bucks a month (got a really good deal last year from comcast; for once) it won’t make too much difference in our cable bill.
That said; I also really distruct many of the download sites out there and would rather not load my work PC (only 1 I have) with more spyware and viriuses than it already probably has.

There are reasonably safe ways to DL, but some health skepticism is still appropriate.
If I were you, I’d hang on to that HBO rate for as long as I could. It would financially irresponsible to drop it.

I mean they have a point. Cable networks work differently than networks. People talking about GoT causes those with HBO to watch it or people without to consider it if there’s a sale. Network TV stations have affiliates to worry about. HBO doesn’t.

HBO can fuck right off, they’re already testing subscriptions to HBOGO in Europe ans the only reason they haven’t done so in the US is all the money that Comcast, TWC, and Charter give them to not do it. I’m on an exchange program with a good friend, he gives me HBOGo and I give him Netflix and Hulu Plus. And hell yes I pick up the seasons as they come out on blu ray.